Germanus

CONCERNING SAINT GERMANUS

PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

AFTER A.D. 780

Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

CHAPTER I.

The sacred cult. Studies and virtues in youth.

[1] Two most illustrious lights of the Christian world of the same name the Catholic Church proposes this month of May, each a Germanus, the one on the day the 28th, and him in the West Bishop of Paris; the other in the East Patriarch of Constantinople, of whom on this May 12 we have determined to treat. This one Cardinal Baronius at the year 730 number 6 calls the bulwark of the Church of Constantinople, the burning and shining lamp of the Eastern Church: In the defect of Acts collected things from various sources are given, as one who not only by holy works and the defense of the Catholic faith the whole

East illustrated, but also by his writings the Catholic Church herself with light suffused. Would that we had his illustrious Acts, written by some contemporary author! In the defect of these from various writings we gather some things done by him, and from his sacred cult we begin; or for this reason most of all, that in this day's Office among the Greeks, his family and the things accomplished before the Episcopate taken up are more accurately indicated. Let the first be an elogium, taken from the Menology of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor.

[2] Our holy Father Germanus, born under the Empire of Heraclius, was the son of Justinian the Patrician; whom on account of envy the son of Heraclius (nay rather from a son the grandson) slew, and Germanus himself he caused to be made a eunuch, Elogium from the Menology of Emperor Basil, and set him over the Clergy of the great Church. Then he first indeed gave himself to the study of the divine Scriptures, and to contemplation and the rest of the virtues to be acquired he spent himself wholly. Afterwards initiated a Bishop, the Church of Cyzicus to be ruled he took up. Thence transferring his See, to the governance of the Church of Constantinople he was advanced, elected Patriarch. There then by his doctrine he illuminated the people, and the deeper secrets of the divine Scriptures he expounded: persisting in that office even to the Empire of Leo the Isaurian. Whom when he had seen averse from the cult of the sacred images, and him neither by reasons nor by exhortations from the heresy to call away could, the Humeral, that is the Patriarchal vestment over the sacred altar laid aside, to his own house returning, a quiet life he led: where prayers assiduously to God offering, ninety years old he migrated to the Lord. Thus far the Menology of Emperor Basil: which plainly the same things are read in the new Anthology of Antony Arcudius, printed by the authority of Clement VIII. But that almost a hundred years old he departed from life, below from the epistle of St. Gregory the second Pope it will be established.

[3] To these we subjoin another elogium somewhat fuller, excerpted from a manuscript old Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople, which belongs to the Paris College of the Society of Jesus. another from a manuscript Synaxary of Constantinople. It turned into Latin is of this kind: He was born under the Empire of Heraclius, son of Justinian the Patrician, a conspicuous and celebrated man, who undertook very many public governances, and by the whole Senate on account of his highest piety with great admiration and veneration was honored. But on account of emulation and envy not at all bearing that, namely that it had been deliberated that he should be set over the empire, the nephew of Heraclius slew him, and made blessed Germanus a eunuch, and enrolled him in the Clergy of the great Church. Then this one gave himself to the contemplation of the divine Scriptures: but by the swiftness of his ingenuity and by assiduous labors to the greatest wisdom and knowledge of things he came. But when the affairs of his life he had rightly composed, first indeed he was ordained Bishop of the Church of Cyzicus, not at once and by leaping the orders received; but by law and the customary statutes advancing, to the summit of the sacred honors he came. Then when the Church needed a provident administration and a man more exercised in eloquence and the use of affairs, from Cyzicus to the great Cathedra of the city of Constantinople he is transferred: where infinite peoples by his doctrine he illustrated, and the deeper and obscure places of Scripture having interpreted, by frequent discourses and encomiastic sermons the Church he exhilarated; and what in vigils is hard and laborious, by his canticles and sweet hymns he soothed: and in these exercises he persisted even to the Empire of Leo the Isaurian. Whom when he had seen the sacred images to abominate and with a certain rage to persecute; he tried as much by the words of sacred Scripture, as by other exhortations to persuade, that from that heresy he should call away his mind. But when he the more blasphemed God, and the most sacred images with contumelies affected; Germanus laid upon the sacred table his Humeral, and to his own house returning, quiet he embraced, and at length in a good old age finished his life, now having gotten of years of living ninety. Whose funeral while it was being borne, it drove off the various diseases of those approaching to his Relics, and after his burial the assiduous benefits of healings overflowing from his sacred pledges the faithful obtain. But his body was placed in the holy monastery of Chora. His feast day is celebrated in the most holy great Church.

[4] Things similar to these are read everywhere in the various Menaea of the Greeks, written by hand and struck in type. 3 Versicles from the Menaea, In these three similar Versicles concerning St. Germanus are contained: which, because of so great a man they are, it pleases to add. The first is: The Leonine mind, the bawd of impiety, strongly, O Germanus, thou didst overcome: for the cult of the venerable images of Christ and of all the Saints that wretched Leo denied: but by thy discourses, O interpreter of the Saints, he was confounded; and as a madman, he remained foolish. The other versicle: Leo, as an impious wild beast, hateful to God and the forerunner of Antichrist, because he oppressed the veneration of the image of Christ, from the lot of the faithful was expelled. Therefore we ask thee, O Germanus, by thy divine prayers calm the present tumult. The third finally Versicle: Thou hast obtained thy desire, long since most prudently longed for, O Prelate of the Sacred things, Blessed Germanus. For to thy Lord, as becomes a sacred man, with confidence thou hast come. With whom since thou art present enjoying divinity, obtain peace for the world. The whole remaining Canon belongs to St. Epiphanius, whose Acts above we gave. In the Menology of Sirletus is added: that Leo burned the books composed by that holy man concerning the orthodox faith. But in the Menaea are said simply burned books, composed for the defense of the sacred images: no word added whence it may be understood, that Germanus composed such.

[5] The place, in which his body was deposited, is thus expressed in Greek: Κατετέθη ἐν τῷ ἐυαγεῖ μοναστηρίῳ τῆς Χώρας. He was deposited in the holy monastery of Chora, the sepulchre of Chora, which to have been in Pontus we said January 8 at the Life of St. Cyrus Patriarch of Constantinople, its Founder: who by Philippicus the Emperor driven from his See, there finished his life. Not however did the holy body remain in that place: for when on the day February 3 we treated of St. Remedius Bishop of Gap, his and St. Germanus the Patriarch of Constantinople's bodies to be kept in Gaul we said: but concerning the Translation of this one Saussay writes thus in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology at this May 12: On the same day the passing of St. Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople… Whose sacred body afterwards into Aquitaine by the Franks, the translation of his body into Gaul. the subjugators of Constantinople, conveyed, in the confines of Auvergne and Limousin in the town of Bort, enclosed in a silver casket, with the relics of St. Remedius Bishop of Gap was laid up, where now even with all reverence it is preserved. But Bort is on the river Dordogne, where it, coming forth from Auvergne, grazes the boundary of the Limousin territory before, the river Rhue being received, it is augmented; nearer to the city of Tulle in the Limousin than to Clermont the metropolis of Auvergne.

[6] Finally his sacred memory is inscribed in the present tables of the Roman Martyrology by this formula: his memory among the Latins. At Constantinople St. Germanus the Bishop, notable in virtues and doctrine, who Leo the Isaurian, promulgating an edict against the sacred images, with great confidence reproved. The same on this day celebrate Antony de Balinghem in his Ephemeris or Calendar of the most holy Virgin Mary, and Francis Marchesius in the Sacred Diary, and that on account of his singular affection toward the Mother of God the Virgin: for which cause Hippolytus Marraccius collected and at Rome in the year 1650 published in print St. Germanus the Patriarch of Constantinople's Mariale, in which the same St. Germanus's all works concerning Mary the Mother of God the Virgin, which could be found, expressed in Latin and illustrated with notes are contained. Finally at the day January 12 his name is inserted in the manuscript Florarium of the Saints.

CHAPTER II.

Things done up to the year 720. The Archbishopric of Cyzicus. The Patriarchate of Constantinople.

[7] Heraclius the Emperor (under whom was eminent Justinian the father of St. Germanus and this one grew up) departed life on the day March 11 in the year 641: after whom when for some months his sons Constantine and Heracleonas had reigned, By Constantine Pogonatus after his father slain made a eunuch, the Empire was deferred to Constans his son too: who after twenty-six years of Empire at Syracuse in a bath being killed, was substituted his son Constantine, surnamed Pogonatus: who at the beginning of his reign, as in Theophanes is read, Justinian the Patrician, the father of Germanus afterwards Patriarch, slew; but Germanus, τραχύτερον more troublesomely bearing it, the manly parts being cut off he chastised. Which deed we reckon about the year 669. But of how great authority he was thereafter, even with Constantine himself, will be established below from the epistle of St. Gregory the second Pope. But when the pious Emperor Constantine, says Theophanes, had reigned seventeen years, his son Justinian took up the Empire, afterwards surnamed Rhinotmetus, because mutilated of his nose into Cherson relegated he remained, while Leontius for a triennium, and Absimarus for a septennium administered the Empire. Then at last Justinian the Empire recovered reigned again even to the year 711, in which together with Tiberius he was slain by Philippicus: who then the Empire gotten by crime for about a biennium held, in the year 713 his eyes being plucked out cast down.

[8] There flourished under the said Emperors St. Germanus, enrolled in the Clergy of the great Church, from a Cleric Bishop of Cyzicus, and set over the same, and thence on account of the excellent splendor of his virtues and doctrine he was ordained Bishop of Cyzicus the metropolis of the Hellespont: but under which of those precisely is not clear. Under Philippicus that he administered the See of Cyzicus, indicate Nicephorus the Patriarch in his history, and Theophanes in the Chronology: with whom Germanus, among those who then to the heresy of the Monothelites against the holy and Ecumenical sixth Synod favored, with John the Pseudo-Patriarch, intruded into the place of St. Cyrus, is numbered: which is wholly false, he did not adhere to the Monothelites and excerpted from the guileful charters of the heretics. Nay rather with St. Cyrus he seems driven from his See, and with the same in the monastery of Chora to have cohabited, so that for this reason there he wished to be buried: and in Theophanes to the said St. Cyrus, but the sense being changed, he is joined. But how sincerely the orthodox faith he ever cultivated, testify three hundred and fifty Bishops in the second Synod of Nicaea, in the sixth Action near the end, with these words: Germanus as a luminary in the world shone, containing the word of life: who nourished in sacred things, always held Orthodox: and like Samuel from infancy deputed to God, and to the holy Fathers like was proved. Whose disputations to follow to be necessary, his writings affirm, celebrated through the whole world. For the exaltations of God in his jaws, and two-edged swords in his hands, darted against those dissenting from the Ecclesiastical tradition. Nay that the sixth Synod against the Monothelites might be convened, that St. Germanus collaborated below will be established.

[9] Meanwhile Philippicus being cast down, the Emperor crowned was, on the very feast of Pentecost in the year 714, Artemius; and Anastasius he is called. He was excellently cultivated in letters, and a favorer of the Catholic parties, who John the heretic being expelled, St. Germanus to Constantinople transferred, in the year of Christ 715. Of which translation thus writes Theophanes. But in the second year of the Empire of Artemius, who is also Anastasius, in the fifteenth Indiction, on the eleventh day of the month of August, from the metropolis of Cyzicus to Constantinople

Germanus was translated. Made Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 715. A decree concerning that translation, which is subjoined, was promulgated. By the suffrage and consent of the religious Presbyters, Deacons and the whole more sacred Clergy, and the sacred Senate, and the whole Christ-loving people of this God-guarded and imperial city; the Divine grace, which ever cures the weak, and fills up what is lacking, Germanus the most holy Metropolitan and President of the Metropolis of Cyzicus, into the Episcopate of this God-preserved City and Queen of cities, transfers. This translation was made before Michael the most holy Presbyter and Apocrisiary of the Apostolic See, and the rest of the Priests and Bishops present, Artemius reigning. Thus there, which confirm the man to have been of orthodox faith.

[10] To these it pleases to append, what in the Life of St. Stephen the younger, on account of the sacred images under Constantine Copronymus a Martyr, are had, of which this is in our Greek manuscript the exordium: Θεῖόν τι χρῆμα ἡ ἀρετὴ, A certain divine thing is virtue. Leo Allatius in his Diatribe on the writings of the Simeons page 126 acknowledges that Life to be a genuine offspring of Simeon Metaphrastes, which James Billius subjoined to the works of St. John Damascene, whence wrongly to him some have ascribed it. from whose mouth first entering the church When the said St. Stephen the younger was still in his mother's womb, these things are narrated to have happened: When the excellent man Germanus was about to ascend the Patriarchal throne, the people with an immense throng to the great temple of St. Sophia, from the desire of seeing him, ran together. For he was renowned and illustrious by the name of virtue, and in the tongues of all not without pleasure was turned. But together with all that illustrious pair of the parents of Stephen running up, had occupied a certain bench: from which him, whom she desired, from a higher place she could behold. When therefore he passed through the Church, straightway the woman (for the care of him, whom she bore in her womb, urged her) Bless, and to St. Stephen the younger blessing, Lord, that which is in my womb, began to cry. But he with the perspicacious eye of the soul beholding him, who was carried in the womb, May the Lord bless him through the intercessions of the Protomartyr Stephen, he answered. Before all moreover the woman affirmed that at that hour, in which she heard this, a fiery flame leaping forth from that divine mouth she had seen. When therefore he was brought into the light, a flame seen to leap forth, straightway him, as the great Germanus had foretold, they called Stephen. But since with baptism too it behoved him to be illustrated, who, before even he came into the light, had been illuminated; to the baptistery of the great Sophia there was a going. But it was then the evening of the great Sabbath of Christ's Resurrection, the same one he baptizes and to that most illustrious Germanus into his hands he is given: who straightway baptizes him and anoints; him I say, who now soon was to be the spiritual unguent of the Church. Thus there, which also, and indeed more fully, are explained in another Greek manuscript, which found in the Vatican codex 808 at Rome itself we transcribed; and these all things will be at the November 28 day, the birthday of St. Stephen the Younger, to be illustrated.

[11] To this St. Stephen the Martyr, with respect to the Protomartyr called the younger, we adjoin another St. Stephen, Founder of the monastery τοῦ Χηνολακκοῦ, or at the Lake-of-geese, as we set forth at the January 14 day his birthday: Another St. Stephen he receives, of whom in the Menaea of the Greeks, equally as in the manuscript Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople, these things are read: He came to Constantinople, received in hospitality by the most holy Patriarch Germanus: with whom for some time tarrying, very many things from him he learned, and great fruit thence he received, and in the things to be done with wholesome counsel he aided him. Hence is that monastery, which from the Lake of geese received its name, to whom he donates a little field. founded by him: in which he himself lived, and a great number of monks gathered. Thus there, to which is added in the Menology of Emperor Basil: Most humanely by Germanus the Patriarch received, and presented with a little field, in which a monastery he founded.

[12] Anastasius Artemius, in his affairs distrusted, being substituted and as if by mockery made Emperor was Theodosius of Adramyttium: Recalled from exile under whose beginning of empire the friends of Artemius being seized, and together with Germanus the Constantinopolitan Prelate to Nicaea deported, write Theophanes, Nicephorus the Patriarch, and others. But Theodosius the opinion of Germanus the Patriarch and the Senate being required, from Leo the Isaurian, who in this transaction had admitted the Patriarch as arbiter, an arbiter for Leo the Isaurian, the faith of immunity and safety to have received, and under it from the Empire to have abdicated himself and to Leo to have delivered it, is said in the same Theophanes: who at this Leo's third year, of Christ 719, these things writes: This year to the irreligious Emperor a son, in impiety and irreligion superior, the true forerunner of Antichrist, was born. But of the month of October on the twenty-first day (or as another manuscript has κε᾽, he foretells future things at the baptism of his son Copronymus the twenty-fifth, which following the author of the Miscella wrote the 8th of the Kalends of January) Maria his wife in the triclinium of Augusteos (which more entirely Balsamon calls the Augusteon) received the consortship of the crown, and with a solemn retinue, without her husband, to the great Church proceeded. And vows there being conceived, before the Entrances to the great altar the solemnities, to the great baptistery, her husband by a few domestics surrounded, to the same place betaking himself, she herself proceeded. Where when the heir of the empire and of their malice Constantine by Germanus the Prelate with the lustral water was purified, a dire and foul indication of himself from infancy he gave, namely his bowels into the sacred laver discharging, and at his coronation. as by eye-witnesses worthy of credence is reported. So that the most holy Patriarch Germanus, the greatest evil to the Christians and to the Church itself through him to come, by that sign to be portended divined. Hence to the said Constantine the surname of Copronymus adhered. Then in the fourth year of Leo, in the third Indiction, on the very day of Easter (it was the 31st of March) by his father Leo Constantine in the tribunal of the nineteen Couches received the crown of the Empire, the customary prayers Germanus the Patriarch of blessed memory performing.

CHAPTER III.

The acts with Leo the Isaurian for the cult of images.

[13] It pleases with Theophanes, from whom the above we have taken, to proceed. In the year, says he, of the Empire the ninth, the irreligious Emperor Leo, concerning the proscribing and deposing of the sacred and venerable images, Leo the Isaurian beginning to act against the images first to have a treatment began: whose purpose being learned Gregory the Roman Pope, having written first to Leo himself a decretal epistle, in which he admonishes that it does not become an Emperor to determine anything concerning faith, and the ancient sanctions of the Church confirmed by the holy Fathers to innovate or to pluck up, the tributes of Italy at length and of Rome to himself to be brought he prohibited. But, as to the following year 726 is referred, that impious one, not only in the error concerning the relative veneration of the venerable images was turned, but also concerning the intercessions of the most holy Mother of God and of all the Saints: and the intercession of the Saints, and their Relics the most criminal man, after the manner of the Arabs his teachers, abominated. From that time therefore enmities with the blessed Patriarch of Constantinople imprudently he took up, all his predecessor emperors, Prelates, calls his ancestors idolaters: and the Christian peoples as idolaters, on account of the veneration of the sacred and venerable images, condemning: since he, for too great incredulity and rusticity, of the relative cult of them reason and discourse by no means could grasp.

[14] Then at the thirteenth year of Leo, which is to us the year of Christ 730, the same argument pursuing Theophanes: The nefarious, he says, Emperor, against the right faith raging, the Holy Germanus summoned to himself with words divinely inspired (that is the Scriptures, but distorted into his depraved sense) began to allure. The blessed Prelate therefore thus addresses him: Of the holy images indeed the future proscription we have heard, yet not while thou reignest. He, in whose age or Empire the matter would be to be executed, more solicitously inquiring; Germanus answered: In the time of Conon. He said: But Conon is my name, in baptism itself truly given. The Patriarch subjoins: Far be it, Lord, that while thou reignest that evil be perpetrated: for the forerunner of Antichrist is he, who that crime will fulfill, and of the divine Incarnation the subverter and enemy, such as once Herod inveighed against the Forerunner. But the security of faith, before the Empire taken up offered, the Patriarch into memory recalled; by which namely, God being given as surety, nothing of the Apostolic and traditional things sanctioned by God concerning the Church of God itself he would at all innovate he had promised. But so far was it from the wretched Leo to be ashamed of what he had begun, that besides he was bent on this, the Patriarch's discourses catching, and others deceitfully mixing, that he might convict him guilty of treason: that him, as seditious, not indeed as a Confessor, from his throne he might drive.

[15] For that matter having gotten as helper and partaker Anastasius, Germanus's disciple and Syncellus, who to his accomplice Anastasius foretells an evil end, to him, as an emulator of his sentiments and in all things conscious, he promised, that he would be the successor of the See. This one when so against himself depravedly affected the Blessed one was not ignorant, his Lord imitating, as another Iscariot, openly indeed, but gently him of the betrayal admonished. But when from the error him to be recalled could not he perceived, on a certain day to the same Anastasius, of Germanus going to the Emperor the hinder hem of his vestment treading, the Patriarch himself said: Do not hasten, for into the stadium of the Circus more swiftly than thou wilt thou shalt enter. But neither was he by these words troubled, nor did others understand the presage: which yet fifteen years after, namely in the third year of the Persecutor Constantine, in the twelfth Indiction at length had its issue, in ill usurping the Patriarchate: and not without a divine impulse to have been uttered it was established. For Constantine, Artabasdus his son-in-law being expelled, when alone he had gotten the Empire, Anastasius with his other enemies being beaten with stripes, then naked, and on an ass with his face turned backward sitting, through the stadium of the Circus openly to be led about commanded: as one who together with his enemies himself from the office of Emperor abrogated had cast him out of the Empire, and Artabasdus had crowned.

[16] Moreover that sacred and divine Germanus, the defender of the decrees of the true religion, and resisting Leo with St. Gregory II, flourished at Byzantium; against Leo, from the matter having his name, and his satellites, as against wild beasts, fighting. Just as in old Rome a man on every side sacred and Apostolic, the successor of Peter the Chief of the Apostles, by erudition and illustrious deeds was renowned Gregory: who Rome and Italy and the whole West from Leo's obedience, as much civil as ecclesiastical, withdrew. Then indeed at Damascus of Syria John Chrysorrhoas a Presbyter monk, son of Mansur, an excellent Doctor, and St. John Damascene. by sanctity of life equally as by doctrine shone. Moreover Germanus, as subject to his power, from the Patriarchal throne he cast down. But Gregory by epistles, which all know, to him given was angry with him: and finally John, together with the Bishops of the whole East the impious Leo with anathema bound.

[17] But on the seventeenth day of the month of January, in the thirteenth Indiction, on the third feria of the week, the irreligious Leo a silentium against the holy and venerable images in the tribunal of the nineteen Couches celebrated, Germanus the most holy Patriarch being called: whom he reckons to be persuaded, that to his decree concerning

abolishing the sacred images he should at length subscribe. But the strong servant of Christ, of his own accord he abdicates. to the abominable counsel of Leo by no means yielding, nay rather the word of truth in a right sense distributing, abdicated himself from the Episcopate: nay even, the Pontifical Pallium of his own accord laying down, after a quite long and pure-doctrine-full discourse, at length he said: If I am Jonah, into the sea cast me. For without the authority of a universal Council, O Emperor, concerning faith anything to innovate I am not able. Then indeed into the place, which is called Platanium, into his paternal house betaking himself, the rest of his life with the highest silence he passed. He held the Pontificate fourteen years, five months, six days.

[18] But on the twenty-second day of the same month of January, Anastasius is created Pseudo-Patriarch, Anastasius a man of false name, the disciple and Syncellus of blessed Germanus himself, in his place they substituted: who namely moved by the ambition of secular dominion, since to Leo's impiety he assented, Pseudo-bishop of Constantinople was created. But Gregory, the sacred Prelate of Rome, as I have already premised, Anastasius together with his little books adjudged; and Leo himself, as irreligious, by epistles reproved: and Rome with all Italy to defection from his empire stirred up. Whence the tyrant by a greater daily fury driven, persecution against the holy images moved: so that many clerics and monks and devout laymen, for the right decrees of faith endangered, were crowned with the crown of martyrdom.

[19] And these from Theophanes, but cleansed of error. Thus far Theophanes: in whose royal edition, from the carelessness of the copyists, some σφάλματα errors occur in the numbers. Hence above number 9 in Petavius in the Rationarium of times is read the fifteenth Indiction: and rightly, since wrongly is printed the thirteenth Indiction. For in the year 715, in the 15th Indiction, was translated St. Germanus to the Patriarchal See of Constantinople: and this indeed to have been done is established in the month of August, but concerning the day there is a question. For it is expressed in the editions the eleventh, and afterwards he is said to have held the Pontificate fourteen years, five months three days, and to have abdicated himself in the thirteenth Indiction, namely in the year 730 on the seventh day of January, on the third feria of the week: where that the number of day and feria may agree, in that year in which the Cycle of the sun 6 bore the Dominical letter A, for the seventh of January (which also the author of the Miscella and Anastasius finding noted wrote, the seventh of the Ides of January) ought to be read the seventeenth. But then ought to be said the Saint, beyond fourteen years, five months, to have sat six days: which for this reason the more I approve, because the day 11 of August in the year 715, in which to the Constantinopolitan See he was constituted the Saint, the Cycle of the sun 24 the Dominical letter F, was a Lord's Day, fit for such an action by the old institute of the Churches: and therefore again number 18, where it is said in the place of St. Germanus substituted Anastasius on the seventh day of January; an evident error to be corrected I have judged by putting the twenty-second day. A reading of this kind certainly before their eyes had the author of the Miscella and Anastasius in history, when they wrote, the eleventh of the Kalends of February, which day similarly was a Lord's Day. But if from elsewhere it were established that only three days, not six, are to be reckoned for Germanus's Pontificate, then I would say him on the solemn day of the Marian Assumption the 15th of August in the See of Constantinople placed: for most easily ια᾽ for ιε᾽ could creep into the Greek numbers: and this with the notable affection of the Saint toward the Mother of God excellently would square. In the first Exegesis before the third volume of March, especially chapter 5 we indicated and corrected similar errors several, through the carelessness of copyists sprinkled on Theophanes; and his Life, written by St. Theodore the Studite, we gave March 12.

[20] From Theophanes besides, what concerning St. Germanus they bring forth, excerpted Constantine Manasses, Michael Glycas, John Zonaras, George Cedrenus, and others in their several Annals. Only it pleases from the above-praised Life of St. Stephen the Younger the undaunted mind of St. Germanus to be beheld to set forth, while against Leo the Isaurian the veneration of images he defends: For, as the authors of the said Life say, when of that impiety more certain had been made Germanus, St. Germanus's discourse in defense of the sacred images a man with free and intrepid piety endowed, through one of the chief ministers of the Church these things to him he sends: By no means ought it, Emperor, thee, who both life and Empire from God hast received, against thy Founder insolently to be extolled; and, as is commonly said, the things not to be moved to move; and the bounds of the Fathers, which they anciently set, to transfer. For the human form, by God the Word from the holy and pure Virgin assumed, when all worship of demons was extinguished, then all adoration of idols departed. But of the Theandric likeness the image of Christ to be adored by us and to be cultivated perspicuously has been delivered: and likewise of her, who Him in some way more excellent than every discourse brought forth, and of the Saints whose life to Him pleasing and acceptable was. For since He in our form to us came (but hence seven hundred thirty-six years now have flowed) the Fathers meanwhile and Doctors, whose highest virtue was, the cult of the venerable images to us perspicuously delivered. Not to go far, after Christ's ascension into heaven, that woman, who labored with the flux of blood, by Him restored to health, His image as a received benefit referring, sculpted. And before too by Christ Himself, the very image of the Father, on a divine cloth His face was impressed, and to the Toparch Abgar demanding it to Edessa sent. Finally by the Evangelist Luke it was painted. Nay from Jerusalem too the image of the Virgin the Mother of God was sent: for which cause the divine and most sacred Councils, at various times and places convened, not that they should be trodden, but that they should be adored decreed. I would wish therefore that thou know this, Emperor, that if this iniquitous dogma to confirm and establish into thy mind thou shalt induce, me first by no means assenting thou shalt have, but prompt and prepared, who for the image of Christ my soul will pour out, for which He, that He might restore my fallen and prostrate image, His gore poured forth. For it is perspicuous that that ignominy and contumely, which to the image of Christ is brought, to the exemplar itself redounds. Wherefore by us it must be done, that performing the office of grateful servants, for the Lord's honor we should undergo peril.

[21] This free discourse that arrogant soul, not even with the extreme, so to say, ears to accept received with stripes, enduring; soldiers girt with swords he sends, who the holy man contumeliously treated, and with stripes ill punished, from his throne should drive. He therefore straightway to the monastic and quiet kind of life betook himself. These from the said Acts of St. Stephen the Younger, which very much by Baronius are praised; where since in the text of both Lives, in Greek, in the year 726 from the day of the divine Incarnation even to the day of this discourse are reckoned, in that year which in the vulgar Era among the Constantinopolitans 722, with us 730 would be called, it seems from some more accurate and then perhaps at Constantinople among the learned everywhere known, although among the vulgar not used, Chronology to be taken: which by the greatest consent of almost the whole antiquity to lean we showed at the beginning of our April at the Proem of the old Pontifical Catalogue. But what concerning the stripes brought upon St. Germanus is related in that Life of St. Stephen, is confirmed by St. John Damascene; whom Baronius at this year 730 number 8 asserts, in these very days to have set about writing discourses on the images. For he in discourse 2 of those; Elias, he says, Jezebel persecuted, and the swine and dogs licked his blood… John Herod slew, with blows, and consumed by worms expired. And now Blessed Germanus with blows struck and into exile sent has been, and very many other Fathers, whose names we are ignorant of. Is not this of robbers? etc. In the same manner Constantine the Pious, formerly Bishop of Tium on the coast of the Euxine Sea, writes in the discourse on the Finding of the Relics of St. Euphemia, which in Greek from the Vatican Library codex 820 transcribed we have: The impure, he says, and profane Leo, of the nation of the unfortunate Isaurians, began to bark against the Church of God and to break the venerable images… Wherefore our most holy Father Germanus the Patriarch, and with scourges. in life and discourse resplendent, with impudence and scourges using, from his See he ejected. We omit to heap up several authorities to this matter.

CHAPTER IV.

St. Germanus praised by St. Gregory Pope II. His name inscribed in the diptychs. Various books published by him.

[22] There presided in this turbulent time over the Roman See St. Gregory II Pope, elected March 25 in the year 708, dead in the year 731, St. Gregory II writes to the Emperor Leo and deposited on the day February 13, in which his Acts we illustrated. This one St. Germanus, what Leo the Emperor was contriving, seriously admonished. But also Leo himself his edict concerning abolishing the images to Rome sent, and in turn two letters from Gregory received, which from the translation of Fronto Ducaeus Greek-Latin published Baronius at the year 726. In the former these things concerning St. Germanus are read. Thou those things (the Pope addresses the Emperor) which are known and beheld as light, openly hast assailed. The Churches of God the holy Fathers had clothed and adorned, thou hast despoiled and laid bare, although thou hadst such a Pontiff, namely Lord Germanus our brother and fellow-minister. that he should obey the counsels of St. Germanus, His as of a Father and Doctor, and as of an elder, and of much experience both of Ecclesiastical and civil affairs abounding, counsels thou oughtest to have obeyed. For he completes today the ninety-fifth year, having served each of the Patriarchs and Emperors; and perpetually was occupied, because to both kinds of affairs to be managed wonderfully useful and apt he was. Him therefore omitting to adjoin to thy side, that wicked Ephesian and his like thou hast heard. Thus there. But there is indicated Theodosius Bishop of Ephesus, who afterwards too to Constantine Copronymus the son of Leo a counsellor was: and of the Conventicle by this one gathered in the 13th year of his Empire, President was Theodosius the Bishop, of Ephesus the son of Absimarus, as at the said year writes Theophanes.

[23] It is said above in the Menology of Emperor Basil, likewise in the manuscript Synaxary, St. Germanus ninety years old to have migrated to the Lord: completing the 95th year of age but if in the ninth year of Leo of Christ 725 or at least at the beginning of the following, as above is said, he completed the ninety-fifth year (in Greek ἄγει σήμερον ἐννενήκοντα πέντε ἐνιαυτούς) he seems to have attained about the hundredth year by living: which also these words in the said epistle of St. Gregory adjoined indicate: When Lord Germanus and he who at that time was Patriarch Lord George had suggested, [who once persuaded Constantine Pogonatus to seek a Synod against the Monothelites.] and had persuaded Constantine son of Constans son of Justinian, that to Rome to us (that is to the Roman Pontiff then existing) he should write, thus an oath being interposed he wrote, and with us dealt, that to a universal Synod to be congregated useful men we should send. Nor with them, he said, will I sit, or imperiously speak, but as

one of them, and as the Pontiffs shall determine, I will execute; and those who speak rightly we will admit, and those, who speak ill, we will expel, and into exiles relegate. If my father has perverted anything of the unsullied and pure faith, I first will anathematize him. Then we God being benevolent sent, and with peace the sixth Synod was celebrated, namely at Constantinople from the month of November of the year 680, even to the 16th of September of the following year, in which Synod the heresy of the Monothelites was condemned. Lo of what authority then was St. Germanus not yet a Bishop, that he in the first place before the Patriarch is placed, who with him suggested and persuaded Constantine the Emperor, that the said Synod to be congregated he should seek.

[24] Finally it pleases to adjoin, what in the said epistle by a certain irony the Pontiff objects to Leo the Isaurian: When the Churches of God, he says, enjoyed deep peace, Chief in the East against the Iconoclasts: thou warrest and hatreds and scandals hast stirred up. Cease and be quiet, and a Synod will by no means be needed. Write to us, and into whatever regions of the world, to whom an offense thou hast been, that Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople and Gregory Pope of Rome concerning the images have not sinned, and we from this care quiet thee will render, lest a sin or any lapse be thine, as we who from God power both of heavenly and earthly things to loose have received. Excellently Cardinal Baronius at the year 727 number 17 St. Germanus calls the first Chief, who against the Iconoclasts in the East the standard of confession raised: which most appears from that very epistle of the said Gregory Pope to St. Germanus, which whole Greek-Latin is inserted into the fourth Action of the Nicene Council II held in the year of Christ 787, where in the beginning these words the holy Pontiff uses.

[25] What and what delight my soul thus to gladden knows, as the gratifying message concerning thy name, which reverend truly to me and to be magnified decently is, with great joy of the same St. Gregory O sanctified and divinely-acted one? For this both now I through thy honorable letters being evangelized have exulted, and for too great joy, in spirit I have been gladdened. Then into heaven extending my eye, to the Giver of graces of all God I returned thanks: who in such a manner too willed, and even to the end with you cooperates, and all your things into light brings forth. For this both must be prayed by me both by night and by day, and never sometime this desire to be deserted in Christ trusting I will pronounce. But testimony bears to my discourse, O most-to-be-praised and beloved of God, also the recollection of thy through every hour benevolence: which having as an inhabitant on my lips, and the grief of the word to bear not being able, straightway to affection through letters I hastened. For it is a debt to me and more notable than all debts, thee my Brother and the defender of the Church to salute and to address, and the materials of thy struggles to praise together. Even if anyone should say and quite fittingly: Let rather that forerunner of impiety cry out, who now has suffered, the evil action by a good action with thy felicities to be exchanged… How therefore with God fighting, O thou Most Holy, against those, who without God and against God are, art thou not moved? on account of the exalted Cross of Christ, Where thou hast so begun the battle, as God Himself to thee has shown, commanding to preside in the camps of the kingdom of Christ the glorious truly and notable labarum, that is, the life-giving Cross, the great against death trophy of its greatness (in which the bounds of the world fourfold He has circumscribed, with lineaments distinguishing them) then also the holy image of the Lady of all and the true Mother of God, whose countenance the rich of the people will beseech. and the image of the Mother of God the Virgin For holy it is, as to the Fathers it seems, who thus by you piously honored bestows requitals. For the honor of the image passes to the principal, according to Basil the Great. And after many things concerning the sacred Images most excellently explained he subjoins:

[26] What need is there to extend the epistle into length, and most of all to a man chosen by God, having obtained the grace of the spirit, and into the depths of divine dogmas able to look forward, and God being the leader to consider thoughtfully the highest height of knowledge. But hence to our purpose let us return. The magnifications of thy Defender, O Most Holy, and of all Christians the Lady, and what thyself thou hast been shown, in all things by her directed and saved, and against the enemies comforted, admiring. But those, who from much time against her have raved, so much found her resisting, as much they found her contradicting them. comparing him to Judith And this is no wonder. For if Bethulia by the hand of Judith an Israelite woman was saved, whose work the slaying of Holofernes was; and this savior of Israel, those who through the same time were proclaimed; how would it not behoove rather thy most ample Holiness, such a Defender having used, to assail the enemies of faith, and with victory to crown thy subjects? But by her supplications and of all the Saints, the powerful in battle God ours, strong and longsuffering, who has led thee above Joseph as a sheep, may He keep thee, Most Holy, into prolix years, of the whole Christian well-working conversation; and wishing that he may long live and to obey the sacred canon teaching all and inciting, and to keep the deposit, which from the Fathers we have received; converting those, who for a little have not understood: O our continual joy, and common utility and refection, Most Holy and to all Christians amiable. These St. Gregory II Pope.

[27] There flourished under the iconoclasts St. Nicetas, an illustrious Confessor Hegumen of the Medicium in Bithynia, whose Acts written in Greek by Theostericus his disciple, rendered into Latin we illustrated at the day April 3, where chapter 4 is described the heresy of the Iconomachs, arisen from Leo the Isaurian, saying, that Christ ought not to be painted, nor in His image adored. These things, The sadness of the Church on account of his abdication, he says, while they were being done migrated from his throne the Great Pontiff Germanus; and there fled from her nest the venerable swallow, who the vernal tranquillity of the Church with a sweet-sounding chirping adorned, the Lord's feasts gracing: and into his place was led a deformed crow, gaping and a discordant croaking, the Church prostrate and sadly groaning, that of so great and so divine a Prelate she was bereaved. That sadness lasted under Constantine Copronymus, especially when in the 13th year of his Empire, as Theophanes speaks, the Emperor into the forum proceeded on the twenty-seventh of the month of August, with the sacrilegious Patriarch Constantine and the rest of the Bishops, and the anathema inflicted on him by the iconomachs. who all their depraved heresy before the whole people promulgated: and the most holy Germanus, George the Cyprian, John Chrysorrhoas the son of Mansur, holy and venerable Doctors, with anathema to strike they dared. The very formula of his condemnation is inserted into the Nicene Council II, where with these words to Germanus, in a double sense and a worshipper of wood, anathema is said. Of St. John Damascene May 6 we treated. But St. George perhaps is he, who is venerated August 24, by Leo the Isaurian, whom of the broken images he had accused, his nostrils being cut off and his head burned slain. Nor does it stand in the way that in the manuscript Synaxary of Constantinople and the Menaea he is called Limniota, because from the sea or Ocean, in which is situated the island of Cyprus, to Mount Olympus and Constantinople he had come. Which yet then will be more accurately to be discussed.

[28] But how in the said Nicene Council the honor was restored to St. Germanus, in the Life of St. Theophanes the Chronographer, which from a Greek Sforzian manuscript we published March 12, is read number 13 in these words. When there was created Patriarch of Constantinople Tarasius, of the true but in the Nicene Synod inscribed in the diptychs, faith the most holy light, and the Ecumenical Synod convened, were confirmed those, which had preceded it, the holy six Synods; subjected to anathema, the above-named Constantine, and his successor Nicetas the heresiarchs and fraudulent Patriarchs; Germanus the most holy Patriarch inscribed in the diptychs; and the foolish error of the Iconomachs removed from the midst, and like a spider's web was dissolved. Hence the most honorable mention of him in the fourth Action of the said Nicene Synod, where everywhere he is called Ἁγιώτατος, μακαριώτατος, ἐν ἁγίοις Πατὴρ ἡμῶν. Most holy, he is honored with most honorable titles, his epistles being inserted. Most blessed, Holy Father ours; and there are brought forth his epistles, namely concerning the sacred images, most accurately written, to John Bishop of Synada, to Constantine Bishop of Natolia, to Thomas Bishop of Claudiopolis: and the former epistle being read Tarasius the most holy Patriarch said: Our Father the Holy Germanus accords with the predecessor most holy Fathers, before in the same fourth action related, who are St. Basil, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, Athanasius, Nilus, Anastasius, Sophronius, with various Acts of the Saints.

[29] Would that in this learned age someone learned in Greek and Latin, A wish that his works be published in Latin-Greek. would expend effort on collecting the works of this St. Germanus, and at the same time on bringing them into light! a most useful work to the Church he would render, and then easily would be discerned whether some treatises ascribed to him, were to be attributed to other authors, for example to Andrew of Crete or to some younger Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople, for two of the same name in the 13th century presided learned men. Philip Labbe in his historical Dissertation on the Ecclesiastical Writers accurately collected a little list of those books and discourses which either by St. Germanus were written, or under his name published. Hippolytus Marraccius published the Mariale of St. Germanus, in which, as above we said, are contained the works which pertain to the cult of the Mother of God, and is prefixed the Patriarchal effigy of the same St. Germanus, to which at the right arm is appended an icon representing the face of the Mother of God Mary. Francis Combefis into the Auctarium of the Greek-Latin Library of the Fathers inserted some Orations concerning the Mother of God, and page 1482 from a Royal Greek Codex adds an encomium of St. Germanus, in which he is said to have taught the word of truth with right faith, and quite many discourses to have written, by which the pious he might gain: but also various hymns to have published for the Saints to be praised, and canticles for the admirable works of divine grace to be celebrated, by which she the ruin of the human race anew repaired. Hence too Simon Wagnereck, in the Prolegomena to the Marian Piety of the Greeks number 21 observes, that the name of St. Germanus the Patriarch, among the expressed hymnographers of the Menaea shines.

[30] Finally Photius in the Library chapter 233 these things has: I read a book by the author Germanus, who first ordained of Cyzicus, after Patriarch of Constantinople was: which book is inscribed, The Requiter and the Legitimate: which is just as if thou shouldst say: On the true and legitimate retribution, that it be repaid to men according as they have lived. And this indeed the inscription of the title. by Photius is praised his style and manner of writing, But he contends Gregory Bishop of Nyssa, and his writings to be immune from the error of Origen. And the deliriums of the Origenists being related, Against whom, he says, Germanus, the patron of piety, the sharp sword of truth drawing, and the enemies prostrated by the wound leaving, victor and superior him constituted, against whom the heretical filth had drawn snares and set them. His style in this little work pure and clear, and the tropes of words happily seizing, with a comely and elegant phrase,

not verging to frigidity, quite insisting on his purpose, equal too in undertaking contentions, and mixing nothing beyond necessity, omitting nothing which were necessary to be said, both by construction and epichiremas, and by enthymemes, and it is as it were a norm of sound doctrine. Therefore also of those, if anyone vehement, clear, and pleasing, and the spiritual doctrine preferring to ostentation orations wishes to write, an excellent example it is and worthy of imitation… But the books which by snares to catch the heretics contrived, and which Germanus the primary defender of truth from the assault of the robbers without harm preserved, by which he defended certain works of Nyssa. are the Dialogue to his sister Macrina on the Soul, and the Catechetical book, and that which contains the narration on the perfect life. Thus Photius, by these words intimating, which of the books of Nyssa before the rest by interpolating into their own matter the heretics tried to draw, and to wrest from them by his defense Germanus contends. Concerning these can be seen our Labbe, rightly with Casaubon noting, that neither the great Catechetical Oration, so often by Theodoret in the Dialogues against the heretics cited, although it contain some blemishes sprinkled by the sectaries of Origen, ought to be called into doubt whether truly of Nyssa it is; nor the Dialogue to Macrina, because there at chapter 6 is read concerning the human souls together with the choir of Angels created according to those same Origenists, from whom certain heretical dogmas mixed into that work to have received he writes Nicephorus Callistus book 11 chapter 19. In the same manner to be excused the little book on the perfection of a Christian to Olympius will be, which here seems to be noted by Photius: but the whole matter would lie open more clearly, if the very work of St. Germanus composed for those should come into light.